“The thing is, these women are so inspirational. They are the women who came up in the Sixties – they are the coolest girls,” says Rachel Fanconi, the stylist who counts both Mirren and Lumley as longstanding clients.
Fanconi says that when she is preparing mood boards for photo shoots, the archive imagery she pulls from the Sixties and Seventies often references events or eras when “they were there – they were doing all of that”.
“I think expectations around what women look like in their 80s are constantly evolving. The only surprise is that it seems to catch everybody by surprise. We all carry this idea of what each number looks like in our head from when we are very young. You have just got to really let that go.”
Taking a wider view, fashion designers seem to be embracing the power of older women on the catwalk and in advertising campaigns. Twiggy is in a Burberry campaign at 76. Gillian Anderson, 57, walked in the Miu Miu show at Paris Fashion Week – designer Miuccia Prada, by the way, remains at the peak of her power and influence, aged 76. And one of the most talked-about models at Chanel’s recent shows has been Stephanie Cavalli, circa 49 or 50 years old, and her beautiful curly grey hair (the destigmatisation of grey hair representing its own anti-ageist shift). Ageism may be on the way out – provided you have extraordinary bone structure and a runway-fashion-compliant frame.